Ebay of the Day: Magnetic Record Player / Recorder

Wow this looks kind of crazy, it's quite expensive with a starting bid of $750.00 but intriguing all the same. The seller says "YOU CAN USE AGAIN ALL TIMES IF YOU WISH , BECAUSE WORKS LIKE A TAPE". The pics clearly show the disks labelled 'Magnetton-Platte' so yeah I'm assuming its a magnetic disk recorder, which, I have to admit, I previously didn't know exsisted. Theres another one detailed on this site with some info and I assume that the device on ebay is based on the same principle. Via Mangalore at the new Human Shield blog.


Comments:
This is rare, but I've come across these things once or twice on flea markets here in Germany. It was marketed as a fancy new dictaphone back in the seventies, I guess.
I also think we can safely assume that the concept was a failure because it didn't inspire further development.
Still, I'm going to pick one up cheaply the next time and try to sell it for $750 as well. =)
 
It's an Assmann dictation recorder from the late 1960s. Big deal....a similar design was the "Recordon" marketed in the US in the early 1950s. They had horrible sound fidelity and were only suitable for voice recording.
http://www.atis-systems.com/web/en/firma/geschichte.htm

Mag-disk recorders were more popular in Europe, while in the US the market was owned by Dictaphone and IBM. Their machines used either soft plastic belts into which a groove was melted by a moving stylus, or (later) belts made of the same material as magnetic tape.
Before that? Wax cylinders....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictaphone
 
i saw kid koala ripping on something like this a few years back and was actually thinking about picking one up as a novelty this week. this one's a little rich for my blood though...
 
Harold, it's actually called an Assman? LOL. I see that you are right.

OK, that explains why it didn't sell in the US. Not many of us would buy a recording disk thing called an "Ass Man", although I might be one of the rear guard who could get behind an idea like that, actually. I'm more a leg man, myself, but it all comes out in the end.

Aren't Sony MD recorders magnetic disk recorders?
 
An "ass" is a donkey. You're thinking of the word "arse".
 
There was a much cruder 1970s variant used in schools in the 70s called the Ricoh Syncrofax (I think). I used one for messing about and it was great. It could even run backwards.

A magnetised A4 sheet was placed on top of a plate under which a play-record head spiralled. Elementary numeracy and literacy lessons were played back as the child read along to the printing on the plain side of the paper. A glass plate held the paper in place and kept it protected. I recorded some more exciting things on the blank sheets.
 
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